It's not as simple as that. I mean, it's not uncommon to have players that overachieve at club level and suck with their nt, or viceversa. Bacca and Jackson never really clicked with the national team, despite having great performances with their clubs. OTOH, Aguilar, James and even Ospina have been very good for the NT despite their irregular club careers. But with Cuadrado is even more complicated. He has been very good for us, specially in the 2014 cycle and has had mixed results for Russia's qualifiers. As I said before, part of it is being better known to other teams, part of it is that more relies on him and part of it is that the team does not have the same functioning as 4 years ago. In the next 8 months Pekerman has to find a more balanced midfield and hope for the development of Arias and Fabra, also that James finds his best form, Falcao stays healthy and that the LW or 2nd forward position emerges with a solid option, maybe Zapata or Izquierdo. With all the right pieces, Cuadrado will again have more freedom to create on the left and less pressure to pick the ball in our own half, and hopefully he will have an stellar wc2018.
That’s a lot of factors for 8 months. What can we realistically expect? Yes James find form Falcao stays healthy Lw position emerges No Balance midfield, unless Lerma or barrios by some miracle plays 10x better than his club. I think arias and Fabra has peaked,
Always going to be a lot of moving parts but I like how you broke it down Who are you thinking as Lw? I guess it depends if we revert back to a 4222 or stick with 4231 Separately, I wish i knew the stats for cuadrado this wcq vs 14 wcq as it relates to distance covered on the pitch and other metrics like dribbles/passes completed, etc. I wonder if for the friendlies chara gets the starting nod and cuadrado gets the super sub role just so chara has a chance to get log in some game time
As I said in another thread I think playing against other teams with different styles from around the world will help someone like Cuadrado. That may give him confidence. The South American teams know him and his tricks and know how to defend him.
I think formation is the key. We are in a sole striker generation, as in not only Colombia. But most teams national and club adopted a 1 striker formation. It’s risky to run a 2 striker team, we don’t control the midfield well as it is with 4 or 5 mids. Ideally we have a list of LW’s Chara(potentially) Quinones Pabon Marlos Moreno Fabian Castillo Izquierdo Stick with cardona on left Muriel Or move James to left and have 3 central mids sanchez, barrio, cardona
Of those players you mentioned, chara, Muriel and Cardona are probably at the top of the priority list...at this time Things could change by March/May - I would love to see Marlos back in that role where he was a game changer I see a potential light at the end of the tunnel if we give falcao-Duvan some more games together - which would likely result in a cuadrado-James pair behind them, but I hear ya on the risks that come with that kind of formation
Wonderfull assist Higuain gol!!!!!Feed the Pipa and he will score https://t.co/Q6USzryDtl— JuveFC (@juvefcdotcom) October 31, 2017 Brilliant assist by Cuadrado on Higuain's goal- both of 'em should get a lot more respect— David Amoyal (@DavidAmoyal) October 31, 2017
Cuadrado scored a header . 3 goals this season GOOOOOOL! CUADRADO#JuveBenevento 2-1 pic.twitter.com/X7cokqDbPC— Juniverse™ (@jup1897) November 5, 2017
I just wish he could do that in yellow. Seems like all his headers and shots are well wide or hitting the post.
Not the best of matches for Cuadrado today against Barca. Lost the ball a few times and made some bad decisions. And Defensively he made some silly mistakes.
Is he having trouble against "big" teams? If I recall correctly he didn't had the best CL final last tournament
I can't speak in general terms when it comes to good teams but I can only talk about what happened yesterday. In the way Juve was set up tactically (and the way Barca always keeps tika-taka possession) he looked more liked a Right Back most of the game. And he made some bad timing mistakes when trying to clear the ball and trying to defend. In the brief attacks Juve had he would get the ball and look a bit lost. He did not look like himself at times. Like when he tries to attack and do his gambeta dribbling moves for Colombia, he tried none of that in this match. Maybe the manager told him to keep things simple. And when he did get a shot opportunity he would shoot it to the moon. I think the worst part of his game yesterday was that he was easily pushed off the ball and lost possession with bad passes in the midfield. A lot of that has to do with Barca knowing how to press but some of that was just sloppy decision making.
Cuadrado scores, gets into the box and attacking areas much more with Juve, needs to do that for Colombia.